“Photographers’ Identities Catalog is an experimental interface to a collection of biographical data describing photographers, studios, manufacturers, and others involved in the production of photographic images. Consisting of names, nationalities, dates, locations and more, PIC is a vast and growing resource for the historian, student, genealogist, or any lover of photography’s history. The information has been culled from trusted biographical dictionaries, catalogs and databases, and from extensive original research by NYPL Photography Collection staff.”

Some problems with the PIC entry for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon:

As stated, the PIC relies on “trusted” information from a number of published sources, but the source about Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon, The Union List of Artist’s Names (ULAN) published online by the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, has a number of factual errors in need of correction, and lacks bibliographic entries of substance about their photography.

The biographical “Note” in the ULAN entry is used for both Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon: “British, of French origins; later lived in America. Augustus worked with his wife Alice, photographing local people and archeological sites, including St.Thomas, Tiahuanaco, and Chichén Itzá.”

An update and corrections to the ULAN biographical note:

1) Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851-1910) was born in London, and had no French origins. Augustus Le Plongeon (1826-1908) was born on the Island of Jersey to French parents.

2) Both Augustus and Alice were trained photographers. Alice learned photography from her father Henry Dixon, a noted London photographer, and Augustus learned photography from the English photographer Fox Talbot. He began practicing photography in the 1850s in San Francisco, California.

3) Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon first met in London in 1871, and were married in New York City before leaving for Yucatán in 1873 to carry out archaeological and photographic projects. Alice did not accompany Augustus on photographic expeditions to the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean or Tiahuanaco, Peru in the 1860s.

4) From 1873 to 1884, the Le Plongeons photographed Maya archaeological sites, ethnographic subjects, made portraits of native peoples and colonialists, landscapes, flora and fauna, and Colonial architecture in Yucatán, Mexico, and British Honduras (Belize).

5) Recently accessed archival materials indicate Alice was behind the camera as much as Augustus, if not more, and was responsible for the processing of their wet collodion glass negatives, and prints.

6) More than 2,500 negatives and prints made by the Le Plongeons are currently archived in public institutions, and private collections.

It should be noted about two years ago the administrator of Getty’s ULAN stated they planned to correct the entry for the Le Plongeons. It was to be based on the Getty Research Institute’s short biographical entry for Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon that can be found in its Finding Aid. The update has yet to be made to the web page, so it was thought prudent to publish this post until corrections are made.

For addition background on the Le Plongeon just enter the ArchaeoPlanet Le Plongeon Archive by clicking on the sidebar.

]]>https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/alert-new-york-public-librarys-photographers-identities-catalog-pic/feed/0archaeoplanetCatalog of the 19th century photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon now available in spreadsheet formathttps://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/catalog-of-the-19th-century-photographs-of-alice-dixon-and-augustus-le-plongeon-now-available-in-spreadsheet-format/
https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/catalog-of-the-19th-century-photographs-of-alice-dixon-and-augustus-le-plongeon-now-available-in-spreadsheet-format/#respondFri, 06 Jan 2017 00:25:18 +0000http://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/?p=1188]]>Background

Bart Anderson, journalist and computer specialist, saw the need for faster access to the data entries for the 1,037 photos in the Catalog of the 19th century photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon.

While the catalog was published as a book and PDF with an introduction that gives background about each collection, historical context, catalog organization, and other technical information Anderson noted considerable time was required to search the photo collections.

The catalog photo entries had been created as a Word document by Desmond. Anderson then took the Word file and converted it into a CSV file that is compatible with most spreadsheet and database programs, and then into an Excel file for use here. Unfortunately WordPress does not support CVS files. Email me, and I can send a copy of the file.

The Excel file is free for download, and while it retains the copyright of Lawrence G. Desmond, it is authorized for use for research purposes. The Excel file is about 300 Kb.

Catalog Organization and Materials Description

NOTE: For a complete introduction to the catalog of collections refer to the book:

The catalog is subdivided into five collections. Each photographic item in a collection has been cataloged using a data entry card with the fields as listed below.

Collections

American Museum of Natural History (AM)

Donald Dixon Photo Album (DA)

Getty Research Institute (GRI)

Peabody Museum at Harvard University (PM)

Philosophical Research Society (PRS)

Other fields

Catalog number: # 17

Museum photo identification number: PM-P2500F

Subject:

Archaeological Site

Artifact

Biological

Document

Drawing

Ethnographic

European exploration

Geological

Henry Dixon

Painting

Portrait

View

Medium:

Lantern slide

Print or Tracing

Negative

Type:

Albumen

Collodio-chloride printing-out paper

Dry glass-plate

Gelatin glass-plate

Wet collodion glass-plate

Stereo: Yes or No

Size: 4 x 8 Inches

Description:

Upper Temple of the Jaguars.

Entrance to inner temple, south pilaster, north façade, K-8, bas relief. [Any recognizable person in a photo is identified]

Cross Reference:

X Ref: PM-P2500F

or

X Ref: PM-P2500F similar

The Cross Reference field gives the catalog numbers of identical or similar photos in other collections. Similar photos are defined as having the same subject matter, but they were taken at a slightly different angle or time of day from the same camera position. The differences between similar photos are often subtle and hardly noticeable at first viewing.

When the Cross Reference field does not list an identical photo in another collection that indicates that the photographic item is unique to that collection.

Note for Excel users: Under the column titled “Description” — the cell is to short to view the text for item numbers 34, 190, and 960. Excel has entered a string of ##### rather than the text. To view the texts simply double click within the cell.

José Cuellar, Professor Emeritus of Latina/Latino Studies at San Francisco State University, a noted saxophone player and nicknamed “Dr. Loco” because he leads the musical group called Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalapeño Band, will be playing ancient ocarinas from Central and Mesoamerica at Harvard University’s Geological Lecture Hall at 6pm on March 31. Admission is free and open to the public. Better get there early!

Thanks to Professor Davíd Carrasco, director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project at Harvard, and Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, “Dr. Loco” will be playing a variety of ocarinas made by the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica and Central America. They were discovered by archaeologists who call them “artifacts,” but for Professor Cuellar they are wonderful musical instruments.

Performance: Dr. Loco will be playing the ocarinas at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts on March 31 at 6pm. The performance is free and open to the public.

]]>https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/professor-jose-cuellar-to-play-ancient-ocarinas-at-the-peabody-museum-harvard-university-2/feed/0archaeoplanetCuellar, joseCalifornia Water Usage Warninghttps://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/california-water-usage-warning/
https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/california-water-usage-warning/#respondFri, 12 Jun 2015 21:36:22 +0000http://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/?p=787]]>I agree, this has little or nothing to do with archaeology, but I wanted to share an amusing moment as we drove through a downpour, windshield wipers on full blast, on the way to SFO a couple days ago. Give us more…

Sign on Interstate 280 during an unexpected rain storm near the San Francisco International Airport.

]]>https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2015/06/12/california-water-usage-warning/feed/0archaeoplanetSign on Interstate 280 during an unexpected rain storm near the San Francisco Airport.Free download- A Searchable Catalog of the 19th Century Photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeonhttps://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/free-download-a-searchable-catalog-of-the-19th-century-photographs-of-alice-dixon-and-augustus-le-plongeon/
https://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/free-download-a-searchable-catalog-of-the-19th-century-photographs-of-alice-dixon-and-augustus-le-plongeon/#respondTue, 14 Apr 2015 23:48:54 +0000http://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com/?p=757]]>

This searchable 363 page catalog of more than one thousand photographs taken in Yucatán, and Belize in the 19th century by Alice Dixon Le Plongeon and Augustus Le Plongeon is from the book A Catalog of the 19th century Photographs of Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon (printed by Blurb in 2015). This PDF was made available because the PDF from Blurb (printer of the entire book-catalog) is about 90MB, and is not searchable.

For researchers in need of additional information, the book includes a Preface, Acknowledgements, and Introduction with considerable current and historical background on the five collections of Le Plongeon photographs, the photographic methods of the Le Plongeons, and how the photos in five collections were duplicated and cataloged.

The downloaded Searchable Catalog is free, and with no copyright restrictions for scholarly use.

This book by Lawrence G. Desmond is a catalog of 1,034 photographs taken by Alice Dixon and Augustus Le Plongeon in Yucatán, Mexico, and Belize from 1873 to 1885. Some of the photos are the first taken of Maya archaeological sites in Yucatán, and of the people of Yucatán during the 19th century.

The subjects in the photo are: Landscapes, Colonial and Ancient Maya Architecture, Portraits, and Ethnographic photos. The original photos are archived at: The American Museum of Natural History, the Donald Dixon album in London, the Getty Research Institute, the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, and the Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. In the 1990s, uplicates of the original photos were made with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (Grant RT-20746). The duplicates can be viewed at the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in the “Lawrence G. Desmond collection of Augustus Le Plongeon and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon Photographs.” Collection ID number: 5268.

To purchase a copy of the catalog as hardcopy, a PDF or just view all the pages go online to the web site of Blurb. Click on the link under the cover photo to go directly to the Catalog at the Blurbweb site and view all the pages.

A new doctoral dissertation of note: “Invaders, explorers and travelers: Everyday life in Yucatán from another perspective, 1834-1906” by Dr. Lorena Careaga. Careaga, a professor and director of the library at the Universidad del Caribe in Yucatán, recently completed a multi-year study of how life was lived in Yucatán, Mexico during the Caste War that pitted the Maya against the central government of Mexico for more than a half century.

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation summarizes and critically reviews the life and work of 30 men and 3 women from outside of Mexico who traveled through Yucatán between 1834 and 1906 as explorers, expeditionary photographers, war correspondents, mercenaries, government representatives, military officers, merchants, artists and naturalists, and who left published accounts of their travels, as well as their personal appraisal of everyday life during the revolt of the Maya against the government of Mexico called the Caste War of Yucatán. The dissertation also assesses the contribution of nineteenth century travelers in Yucatán to the then developing fields of archaeology, anthropology with special emphasis on Maya ethnography.

While there are numerous studies about nineteenth century foreign travelers to Mexico, in the case of the Yucatán Peninsula this dissertation fills two important research gaps. The first is travelers’ reports of everyday life in general, and in particular, how life was lived during the Caste War while under a permanent threat of attack. Analyzed and placed in historical context are travelers’ first hand descriptions of everyday life in times of conflict, and the effects of warfare on Yucatecan life.

Secondly, most bibliographic compilations list only fifteen foreign travelers to the Yucatán Peninsula from 1834 to 1906. Some important observers were left out because their theories and opinions were considered unacceptable, and others were overlooked because their writings were not translated. This dissertation presents a comprehensive and systematic study of all thirty-three foreign travelers.

Finally, Careaga compares and contrasts photographs, drawings, maps, engravings, vocabularies, and other documentary materials produced by travelers, explorers, and expeditionary photographers, and assesses their contribution to our knowledge of life in Yucatán during this period of revolutionary conflict.

After almost 30 years, the photos I took of scholars who participated in the ground-breaking annual symposia sponsored by the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project (MMARP) are now available in my book: Scholars in Dark Glasses. Photos of MMARP Symposia 1982 to 1994.

The photos are documentary in style, and are of the archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, historians of religions, art historians, historians, archaeo-astronomers, and many others from Mexico, the US, Japan, UK, and Europe who contributed to the development of a new direction in the study of the life and religious practices of the Aztecs, Maya, and other ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica.

Photos selected for the book are from the Lawrence Gustave Desmond Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project Photographs collection archived by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (GRI Special Collections accession number 2014.R.16).

Book metrics:

An Introduction illustrated with 9 photos

Symposium photos: 165

Pages: 196

Presentation: 10×8 inch Landscape

Paper: Premium Matt

Available from Blurb in Paperback, Hardback, and Image Wrap or as a PDF.

Lawrence G. Desmond, Palo Alto

To learn more about the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project click on this link: http://mmarp.com/

Most of the photos in this book, An Unintentional Photographer, 1968-1970. Mirrored Rooms and Chain-link Fences are of the people, landscape, and architecture of San Francisco, the Sierra Nevada, and Arizona. Those photos were taken just before I left for Mexico and photographed its people, landscape, and architecture.

An Unintentional Photographer, 1968-1970. University of the Americas, 1970. (Rear cover jacket)

To illustrate my transition to Mexico, I have also included in this book some of the photos I took during my first few months at the Universidad de las Americas in Cholula. What struck me right away were the guards, and a barbed wire topped chain-link fence that created an isolated university for foreigners, and Mexicans with enough money. I tried to show the exclusion, isolation, and privilege by my photos. Fortunately, since the 1980s the university has changed, and it now fosters community inclusiveness that was absent in the early years.

The book has four parts: 1) Cityscapes and other Elements- San Francisco; 2) People- San Francisco, Sausalito and south to Ladera, and Cholula, Mexico; 3) Natural Abstracts, Landscapes, Flora and a Frog- The Far West, and 4) Outside and Inside the Universidad de las Americas, Cholula, Mexico.

Recently,I donated my Mexico photos from the 1970s to Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology where they are now archived.

Selected photos from that collection were published in the following books: